Shit happens....unless it doesn't.

A 55-year-old female with complaints of severe pain from cervical spondylitis and lumbar spondylosis — neck and lower back ailments — had checked into SDM’s Naturopathy and Yoga hospital a couple months back. She also suffers from urticaria: an allergic reaction presenting with skin rashes. Her problems began around 12 years back, with the first clinical presentation being urticaria and the latest being lumbar spondylosis. On further questioning, we discovered another condition that's she's seemingly been battling with for the longest time, but had dismissed it as a "normal problem" and a "layman's malady".

Little did she know, that this singular condition could be the answer to all of her problems; It neatly gift wraps all of her ailments into a single, unifying cause. If she would've paid more attention and attended to it when it first arose — about 25 years ago — she could've probably spared herself all the pain that she's going through today. The infamous condition that you've probably heard of and even gone as far as to toss it around as an adjective in urban culture is.... constipation.

You read that right. You're probably wondering how something as simple as constipation could possibly be the root cause to all of these issues. In order to understand this, let's back up a bit and understand what constipation really is. Medically, a person is said to be constipated if they pass less than three bowel movements a week or has difficult bowel movements. In actuality, anything outside of an easy, daily bowel movement, is considered as constipation.

The Egyptian Ebers Papyrus, one of the oldest books in the world, promoted a theory of disease that begins with toxic, undigested food poisoning the body from the gut outward. This is further backed by Louis pasteurs discovery of microbes which has tremendously elevated the health care game to a whole new level. The theory of germs and micro-organisms causing havoc in our systems was brilliantly discovered and is successfully being treated till date.

Bacteria lives in your poop. Bacteria causes disease. Clearly, the longer your poop sat in your body, the more at risk you were of getting sick.

The "auto intoxication" concept explains why she's sick, but how does this connect to the skin and the vertebral column you ask? The skin, because your skin is the body's first source of elimination. Acne, eczema, psoriasis, urticaria, are usually the body's first signs that all's not well inside. In order to understand how the spine is connected, you'll have to know a little bit about the panchamahabhuta concept and traditional Chinese medicine.

Long story short, the body's essentially a blend of the five - elements of nature: earth, air, water, fire and space. All of these elements are related to each other in one way or the other. Water controls fire, fire controls air, earth controls water - you get the drift. And a set of 2 organs represents each one of the elements. So the problems in one organ, invariably affects another organ based on the elemental theory.

The large intestine here, is toxic and sick. It's associated with the air element. Air creates water, and which organ is connected to water? The urinary bladder. So definitely the urinary bladder meridian is going to get affected if the problems in the large intestine persists.

The bladder meridian is an interesting meridian. It's run through the body is long and complicated, making it one of the most important energy meridians of them all. It starts off in the inner corner of the eye, runs upwards into the head, flows down the entirety of the back and ends at the base of the little toe. Any problems in this meridian is confirmed by the manifestation of any conditions along the flow of the meridian. The urinary bladder meridian governs the spine and the back, and when things started going south, that's where her problems started.

So, she started receiving her treatment in accordance with this concept. She was put on a plant based diet, and she received acupuncture on the stomach meridian and large intestine meridian. In less than 10 sittings, she noticed a significant reduction in her back pain with the pain scale dropping to a 4 from an 8. She noticed that her bowels were easier to pass and she had seeming started passing it everyday as opposed to her previously irregular schedule. As for her skin, she had completely gone off her anti-histamines, and there were no flare ups. The results hyped her up, and she decided to extend her stay by 10 days.

Over the decades, constipation has gone by many delicate euphemisms, but the problem itself refuses to budge. These days, most people are ill. Being ill has become our new normal. It's no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. So it's time we start going against the norm and start treating our bodies right.